![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Windows 8 as the "New Coke"...
Nov. 23rd, 2012 01:05 pmThere's a lot of buzz out there about Windows 8, and a lot of it would not appear to be of the kind to make Microsoft's marketing department happy. See, for example, Windows 8—Disappointing Usability for Both Novice and Power Users which summarizes itself as follows:
After reading that and other articles, I began to see how the introduction of Windows 8 might be an attempt to replay the masterful "New Coke" ploy that allowed Coca-Cola to fundamentally change its products under the guise of "listening to its customers" after having strayed from the right path.
Think of it as a sort of corporate version of "rope a dope."
We lived in Jacksonville, Florida, when Coca-Cola introduced "New Coke," and to say the product did not do well was an understatement. Several months after the new product was introduced, I recall seeing six-packs of small "old" Coke on sale privately in our neck of the woods at outrageous prices (one six-pack was on sale for $50, if memory serves).
Eventually, Coke apologized to its customers and "brought back" the "old" Coke, and while die-hard Coke drinkers admitted it tasted a lot more like the Coke they remembered than the "new" stuff, most such Coca-Cola lovers—myself included—were convinced the formula had been subtly changed (no doubt to the benefit of Coca-Cola's bottom line).
I suspect the same might happen with Windows 8.
While tablets are just fine for some kinds of web browsing and email, they are, in my arrogant opinion, just not suitable for hard-core Internet research, day-in-day-out wordsmithing, or number-crunching. I have translated short documents on my iPad, provided there were no embedded objects to deal with or too many words to look up. No way would I use a tablet to translate any document of substantial size and/or complexity.
Therefore, I suspect we are about to see—after a suiable period of yelling, screaming, and gnashing of teeth following product launch—a realization by Microsoft that its approach with this latest iteration of Windows was all wrong, an acknowledgment of having made a misstep, and corrective action.
In the end, I would not be surprised to see that what will emerge will be a two-tiered level of computing that will mesh well with the respective skill levels of a novice (must be able to fetch, open, and view files, but not so much edit or extensively comment them) and power user (must be able to do everything). The former may end up being all cloud-based; the latter will probably come in a box, with a suitably "professional" price tag.
And no disrespect for some managers of my acquaintance who are very technically savvy, but these skill levels pretty much match those of managers and the people they manage.
I'd love to be wrong on this. In the meantime, I plan to hang on to Windows 7 for as long as I can.
Cheers...
Hidden features, reduced discoverability, cognitive overhead from dual environments, and reduced power from a single-window UI and low information density. Too bad.Ouch!
After reading that and other articles, I began to see how the introduction of Windows 8 might be an attempt to replay the masterful "New Coke" ploy that allowed Coca-Cola to fundamentally change its products under the guise of "listening to its customers" after having strayed from the right path.
Think of it as a sort of corporate version of "rope a dope."
We lived in Jacksonville, Florida, when Coca-Cola introduced "New Coke," and to say the product did not do well was an understatement. Several months after the new product was introduced, I recall seeing six-packs of small "old" Coke on sale privately in our neck of the woods at outrageous prices (one six-pack was on sale for $50, if memory serves).
Eventually, Coke apologized to its customers and "brought back" the "old" Coke, and while die-hard Coke drinkers admitted it tasted a lot more like the Coke they remembered than the "new" stuff, most such Coca-Cola lovers—myself included—were convinced the formula had been subtly changed (no doubt to the benefit of Coca-Cola's bottom line).
I suspect the same might happen with Windows 8.
While tablets are just fine for some kinds of web browsing and email, they are, in my arrogant opinion, just not suitable for hard-core Internet research, day-in-day-out wordsmithing, or number-crunching. I have translated short documents on my iPad, provided there were no embedded objects to deal with or too many words to look up. No way would I use a tablet to translate any document of substantial size and/or complexity.
Therefore, I suspect we are about to see—after a suiable period of yelling, screaming, and gnashing of teeth following product launch—a realization by Microsoft that its approach with this latest iteration of Windows was all wrong, an acknowledgment of having made a misstep, and corrective action.
In the end, I would not be surprised to see that what will emerge will be a two-tiered level of computing that will mesh well with the respective skill levels of a novice (must be able to fetch, open, and view files, but not so much edit or extensively comment them) and power user (must be able to do everything). The former may end up being all cloud-based; the latter will probably come in a box, with a suitably "professional" price tag.
And no disrespect for some managers of my acquaintance who are very technically savvy, but these skill levels pretty much match those of managers and the people they manage.
I'd love to be wrong on this. In the meantime, I plan to hang on to Windows 7 for as long as I can.
Cheers...
